Hello!

It’s been a couple weeks since I got back from a local quilt retreat. I went to the retreat with my mom and sister and we had a great time. There were about 50 of us total at the retreat.

My mom, sister, and I all worked on our own string of prosperity hens using scraps or charm packs. I originally saw the prosperity hen project from Nikki of Pin Cut Sew on YouTube. Here’s the link to the video so you can see how they’re put together. https://youtu.be/9-Yy1wJlutg?si=2qPFQP7WnefWo6If

I used part of a charm pack for my hens and I decided to use yellow felt for beaks but in the video she made prairie points. Either way works. We did buy the cotton stuffing to stuff them and used doll needles to string the hens. It matters what weight of thread you choose for stringing the hens. My mom had a thicker waxed faux sinew that was too thick and it wasn’t easy for her to string her hens. The lady sitting across the table from me at the retreat had some waxed thread that is used for stitching leather and that worked great. It was thinner than the faux sinew.

A couple other projects I worked on were some mini quilts. These were patterns I have wanted to make but hadn’t gotten around to. Part of going to a quilt retreat is prepping your projects so you don’t have to cut much at the retreat. I pre cut my fabrics for the three mini quilts I made. Here’s a picture of the three mini quilts and the prosperity hens I made. These were the most complete items I made. I made progress on some other items but didn’t complete them.

On the left are the two house mini quilts that I didn’t have border fabric for. The pattern is Mini Dwell by Camille Roskelley of Thimble Blossoms. I’ve had this pattern for a long time and have never made it. The blue and green Mini Dwell quilt is made of fabrics from the Shoreline collection by Bonnie & Camille. The blue and red Mini Dwell quilt is made of fabrics from the Antoinette collection by French General. I plan to finish these and hang them up in my sewing area.

I chose the Flowerland Charm Pack from Ruby Star Society to make the Prosperity Hens but I only used 16 charm squares. I decided to use the leftover charm squares to make the Mini Spools quilt on the right, pattern also by Camille Roskelley. The thread spool ends and background fabrics were from my stash. Because I had everything cut out, it was easy to grab a project and start sewing. All three of these mini quilts were made in the morning hours. I would get up and get to the sewing area by 5:30am each morning. I’d be pretty productive and sew until breakfast started at 7am, eat, and then head back to sew some more. When I’d lag in the afternoon, I’d work on the prosperity hens which didn’t take me that long to sew and turn out, but took me forever to stuff with the cotton stuffing. Or it felt like it took forever.

I hope to post the finished mini quilts soon after I quilt them. Yes, I’m going to quilt them myself because they’re so small. I have one project I started on that’s improv but I didn’t get that far on it so not much to show yet and I haven’t taken any photographs of it.

Happy creating!

Camille